Asian language plan calls for smart thinking

Maralyn Parker

–,
Wednesday,
October,
31,
2012,(5:25pm)

Most of us seem to like Julia Gillard’s idea to introduce Asian language studies from kindergarten to every Australian child.

The earlier you start, the easier it is to learn another language, and learning a second language helps with your first language - because it makes you think about how language works. It is good for developing thinking skills in general.

None of this has stopped the usual naysayers coming up with their lists of reasons it won’t work, however.

Probably the worst I have heard is that Asian languages are too difficult for the average Aussie to learn. We are just too dumb it seems.

I can imagine anyone who sat through those tiresome Japanese lessons in junior high school a decade or so ago might think it is difficult. I have to point out it is still compulsory to learn another language in either Year 7 or 8 in NSW - way too late to turn children on to a new language.

The world of teaching and learning has moved on from only a decade ago. Learning a language today is easier and more fun than it has ever been.

Now there are interconnected classrooms locally, nationally and internationally. The online universe abounds with virtual worlds, exciting new educational games and endless opportunities to play in safe spaces.

Then there is the technology to share teachers and expertise as they have never been shared before.

There certainly won’t be a need for an Asian language teacher in every one of the ten thousand schools across Australia to make Gillard’s plan happen.

Many primary schools across this state are already teaching a language but it is ad hoc and is often in response to interest in a particular language by a current school community.

Note that learning an Asian language from kindergarten will not be compulsory under the Gillard plan, rather it will be compulsory for schools to offer the option.

Asia-literacy is not a new idea of course. Just about every political party since the 1980’s have spouted similar rhetoric.

Only a few months ago Tony Abbott was saying he wanted Asian languages taught from pre-school. (Though not all Australian children would benefit from such a policy because not all currently have access to free pre-school.)

The pity is all previous attempts, at both state and federal level, to get schools to offer more Asian languages and studies have floundered because political will and leadership have been missing.

This time however Julia Gillard is backing up her idea with national partnerships, a national curriculum, support from a National Asian Languages Institute and the usual threats to withhold funding from states and territories that don’t begin to apply the changes she wants.

We know how these types of threats work. That is how we ended up with the My School website and a national curriculum, to name a few of Gillard’s reforms.

In NSW we have an added bonus of an extra $1 billion that the O’Farrell Government misplaced, to invest back into schools as well.

I expect any move towards Gonski funding will now take on an Asian flavour, and the threats will work in this case also.

Have Your Say

Nobody in their right mind would deny the intellectual benefits of learning a second language .... unless, of course, the intention is to make that experience compulsory from kindergarten. On that note, I also grant you that very young children are more amenable to language acquisition than any other group. However, the reality is that many school starters are way behind the eight ball in their first language - to the extent that most schools would love a speech pathologist on staff. They are simply not ready and struggle to learn to read and write English (and often they never catch up).

Also, you underestimate the dismal results of community language programs in primary schools that, as you say, are ad hoc and often in response to interest in a particular language by a current school community . From my experience (of working with students who start with the type of language deficit I have described above), six years of community language instruction produces ‘graduates’ who can count to ten and singe a few songs another language - and not much more. Those students who do benefit and make large gains through community language programs are those who are receiving instruction that reinforces their language other than English that is spoken at home. Obviously, this is because they are often immersed in that language while English background speakers only ever hear the second language they are trying to learn in isolation for a couple of (generally boring) hours a week at school.

Of course with the right resources (including time and money), anything is possible - when have public schools ever been given enough resources to make anything possible? - so, who knows, a miracle might happen.

????????? (good night and best wishes to you all - Chinese simplified courtesy of good old Google translate).

Ha Ha! Looks like current blogging technology could not cope with the string of Chinese (simplified) characters I inserted above and they were lost in the translation. A predict our kindies wont cope with them, either.

BTW, here are a couple of interesting points made on this topic on the Letters pages today:

Forget about spending billions learning Asian languages - by 2030, every young person in Asia (for that matter, the world) will be speaking English. (Andrew Tan, Carlingford)

and

Isn’t it about time that we realise we are sitting on a goldmine of human resources with the large number of schoolchildren from different language backgrounds in our schools? Let’s ensure they receive a formal education in that language in our schools.

We don’t need to “teach” Asian languages to compete with Asia, we simply need to ensure that languages spoken in the home are supported by schools and that these students then enter those fields: commerce, industry, education, government etc, so that they can fulfil their chosen career with the support of their background language. (Marco Man, Croydon)

I think both comments are right on the money!

As regulars know, I’m a great fan of multi-lingualism, and I certainly agree that it can help with English or any native language - provided you start with being reasonably literate and articulate in your first language, as Jean states. Many of the NESB students who have problems in our schools are not truly literate in their own language; those who are often do very well. Read the names of high HSC achievers.

I’m not familiar enough with ‘virtual’ learning in languages. If it provides sufficient interaction, fine. If it perpetuates the ‘translation’ method used in Australia for many decades, it will have the outcomes Jean points to. My dear late mum, who taught German and Russian in (primary) schools in Latvia for a few years before WW2 was astounded at the ‘primitive’ approach to foreign language teaching when I was at school.

My inspirational French teacher in my senior years was an honourable exception; he concentrated on conversational language, often conducting the entire lesson in French (the European method) peppered with anecdotes and colloquialisms, demanding a minimum of translations from the standard book of ‘proses’ (which he had co-authored). Consequently, my ‘schoolboy’ French was quite adequate for day-to-day communication on our travels in France - an experience not shared by friends who had more traditional teachers.

I do wonder if the dominance of English in transnational commerce, especially in Asia, will withstand the inevitable replacement of Engish speaking nations as the economic and political superpowers (well on the way). And we should of course utilise ‘native’ speakers of Asian languages for their skills.

I could speak fluent German and English when I attended my first day in Kindergarten (thanks to German grandparents) but soon had the German ‘knocked out’ of me very quickly after attending a small school in a very low socio economic area in country NSW.

Now it’s cool for my kids to do German or Japanese etc in High school – love the way some things have changed.

Would love to see this as an Educational initiative - rather than as a ‘let’s let people from a language background that is fluent in that language do the subject at beginner level at the HSC so they can get a good mark’ initiative.’

How about some learning for the sake of learning and not just academic results ?

By the way Jean - no one cares about your typos - just your ideas - many of which have merit. You are certainly passionate about education.

The string of questions marks wasn’t a typo, but the result of a software incompatibility. Anyway, I can’t help but care about my typos, I am a compulsive pedant, drawn to errors like a banker to money. (sigh)

..... the usual threats to withhold funding from states and territories that don’t begin to apply the changes she wants.

We know how these types of threats work. That is how we ended up with the My School website and a national curriculum,

.....and Abbott etal will do more of the same

Why bother with languages - we’re becoming more like Nth Korea every day anyway.......

At the risk of being denounced as a naysayer, I would like to point out that the Government has promised lots but has not yet reached the stage of setting aside funding for the thought bubbles.

I think that the discussion around education would gain more traction if something was actually happening. This appears to be a Government that is desperate to lift its flagging fortunes and they are promising the World and half of Tasmania.

The Murray/Darling, Gonski, NDIS, are all way in the future and the common thread is that they sound great but are totally unfunded. When I see the colour of Gillard’s money I will enter into a sensible debate.

100% spot on OMoC. One ommission (at least) - you forgot the national dental scheme, another $x billions.

This is all meaningless until legislation is on the table, money allocated with a start date attached.

bratman replied to Old Man
Fri 02 Nov 12 (03:40pm)

Fair comment to some extent, although some programs have commenced - e.g the carbon price (like it or not) and there is nothing wrong with putting forward policies for the future either. Australians will have to accept that if they want goodies, they will have to pay for them, by increased taxes or cuts elsewhere or by borrowing against future earning potential. I happen to believe education is one area in which the investment will bring future productivity returns and cost savings (including savings by having fewer people on welfare, a result I’d applaud in spite of Harry’s totally unfounded claim at the end of the previous thread).

Old Man replied to Old Man
Fri 02 Nov 12 (04:15pm)

I have an opinion on the carbon tax Bratman, I believe the media when it said that Rudd was forced into dropping the ETS by members of his own party. Those same people then dumped Rudd and Gillard is on record as saying that she was against an ETS. The ‘hung’ Parliament allowed the Greens to force the carbon tax and so we now have one.

Much has been said by the Government about how the Coalition also agreed to price carbon but the Coalition’s disclaimer they choose to omit is that it would happen only when the rest of the developed nations proceeded with an ETS or carbon tax. Regardless of how many times Combet stands up and tells us that the rest of the world has a carbon tax, he is being mendacious. Sadly, no carbon tax will reduce the earth’s temperature and as all of us receive compensation, there is no incentive to change our ways.

I couldn’t agree more that education is an area where too much funding is not enough. I am tired of all these reports that have been commissioned over the years and then either cherry-picked or just ignored. I suppose my point was that we need to see a firm decision, with associated funding, and then we can make a proper judgement.

bratman replied to Old Man
Sat 03 Nov 12 (04:20pm)

Thanks for the considered response, OMoC. Carbon tax discussions are probably too far off topic here, but I’ll give my take; it has been raised on this site in respect of the ‘ideological’ teaching of science.

The overwhelming scientific consensus seems to be that there is a degree of warming, and that human activity contributes (the oft-repeated claims that other factors can and have influenced climate change doesn’t invalidate this). Anyway, on a risk assessment basis, there is cause for some concern.

While due its small population, Australia’s contribution is very small, we are among the highest per-capita contributors; consequently, if we are to argue that the large contributors, including many developing countries still struggling to achieve a standard of living comparable to ours, are to mitigate their emissions, we have to be seen to be doing something.

Gillard apparently did argue against the ETS in Rudd’s kitchen cabinet, but when she uttered the famous broken promise about ‘no carbon tax’ she also went on to say, quite clearly, she would introduce a price on carbon. The unexpected hung parliament forced her hand. The opposition has a ‘direct action’ policy, which is less fiscally responsible, but also acknowledges a need to reduce emissions.

The tax has already had some impact on methods of power generation - not just according to Combet. Many other countries have some schemes or plans, and the latest change by the Australian government will tie the price to that in Europe - so it will be internationally comparable.

The compensation for the tax may enable some people to maintain previous behaviour, but there is an economic incentive to change (and ‘save’ some of the compensation) - just as compensating people for, say, an increase in petrol tax would enable them to maintain their existing cars, but would also encourage some towards more fuel efficient vehicles and/or use of public transport. Our solar panels save hundreds of dollars from each of our electricity bills.

Allowing for hope springing infernal about ‘aspirational’ policies, Ummerr is (sadly) pretty correct, in all probablity.

Ummerr replied to Old Man
Tue 06 Nov 12 (03:14pm)

The age-old challenge - spoken by one of the (ex-) inner sanctum:

“What is happening is that the Labor Party has been very focused on touch-feely symbolism. But on the ground it made not one iota of change in people’s lives,” said Warren Mundine, former national president of the ALP. “They are great on vision, but the implementation is not very good.”

Aspirational policies indeed, Bratty. Even I can come up with a few of those!

Maralyn, I recall reading some years back that the total of English speakers within China exceeded the population of the USA, so from
that I not only felt extremely privileged to be born in a country with the
world’s most accepted language (English) as its official one, also a
country where kids could be officially offered the opportunity to learn a
foreign language.If the option isn’t chosen by many, then internet or
not, many of our younger people will find themselves disadvantaged
in their careers.
p.s. I grew up in a community where any one speaking with a strong foreign accent was ostracized!

I recommend you all read the Group of Eight “Languages in Crisis” http://www.go8.edu.au/__documents/university-staff/agreements/go8-languages-in-crisis-discussion-paper.pdf
Research shows that second language learning improves one’s native literacy. I only learned English grammar when I started learning foreign languages (finally one can compare and contrast, which develops awareness of one’s own first language). Also there is the argument that if you expect the Chinese, for eg, to conduct business in English and have respect for you etc etc....do you really believe that scenario works? I don’t think so.

On the other hand, Pro Foreign Language Learning, there have been 67 policy-related reports, investigations or inquiries into language teaching in Australia in the past 40 years, says this professor of languages and literacy education ...’built on the dreams of people unconnected with schools’ and written for ‘’an audience of business people’’. A key aspect of this unreality is blindness to the fact that some languages are harder to learn than others and ... we come nowhere near the minimum hours’’ required. (http://tinyurl.com/awgp56f)

Practicalities dictate that schools are confined to using the ineffectual drip method, which is referred to in cited article above - or teaching another language either one or two hours/week with long intervals (weeks and holidays) between lessons. Of course, there is no way around that (especially in primary school) unless you start taking time away from other KLAs - so what so you propose we ‘drop’ to squeeze in another hour/week of drip-fed second language instruction?

As immersion is the absolute best way to learn a language, one can expect that some (affluent) students will get a big leg up via overseas holidays in the second language-speaking country of their choice. Needless to say, such luxury is not an option for the kazillion ordinary Aussie kids who will be stuck with with weekly drip-feeds. Too bad for them ... and such a waste of time that could be better spent learning something they can actually use in their working lifetimes, the vast majority of which will be spent here in Oz.

Like many education initiatives, this one does not emanate from the educators who will be expected to deliver it.

You’re not too far wrong at all, Ummerr (4.14pm yesterday). I no longer have too much faith in the ALP - just even less in the other mob. I did leave the party after over 30 years active membership, when the cracks in my poor old head started to outnumber those in the brick wall.

Warren Mundine has to be seen in context. His ALP ‘presidency’ was by dint of being runner-up to Carmen Lawrence (and someone else, I think) in a 3-horse race - but all the candidates got a year in order of election. (My last act in the ALP was to vote for Carmen). Warren also didn’t get the senate preselection he wanted. He’s a nice bloke, very conservative, quite pro-private-school. The dynamic part of the duo is his wife, Lyn Riley-Mundine, who was a college director in TAFE (the first Aboriginal woman to be one) and then Aboriginal Education co-ordinator in DET - not sure where she is now - lost contact after I retired. His statement was particularly aimed at Aboriginal issues, and there is no doubt that practical progress there is lacking.

You do have to start with ‘aspirations’, but achieving them costs.

Interesting letter from the Principal of Miller Technology High School to the headmawstah of Kings. Not sure I can manage a link, but I’ll forward it to Maralyn.

Oh the delicious irony of just a couple of lines to sum up 30 years of ALP sanctioned mediocrity and social engineering - a three horse race election and they all get elected and take it in turns.

Oh and Ummer the Government has made many impacts on the ground, mostly negative. I suspect you and Warren intended changes for the better!!

Sick of this learn an Asian language crap. Hello, all Asian countries teach their kids English because ENGLISH is the international language of business--the Chinese just pretend they can’t speak English because it suits them. Any stuff up in the negotiations just becomes a “translation” problem. Chinese people are so switched on to negotiating--even more than Mexicans. So Kevvy started a trend in Mandarin speaking and he was out for a duck and not a Peking (sorry Beijing) one. Given the rubbish our politicians sprout to begin ridiculous non-issues rather than the real issues, this is just another example of a non-issue. Let’s talk reality and address the real issues. Oh, that’s right--reality is broken. Why don’t we all just get over the non-issues and start with some reality. The reality is that all kids deserve a good education and you won’t be getting that at the moment unless you are cashed up and go to a school that teaches the cannon and pays the teachers well. Hey, first day back after a three week long service leave and a kid picked up a stick at last recess and said he was going to hit me with it. I laughed at him and said, “ Hey, great, then I can sue the Department of Education and you’ll end up in juvie. I call that a win-win situation”. I could see the wheels turning. He put the stick down and walked away. Now, say all of that in Indo. LOL

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Pro Foreign Language Learning says:
I recommend you all read the Group of Eight “Languages in Crisis” http://www.go8.edu.au/__documents/university-staff/agreements/go8-languages-in-crisis-discussion-paper.pdf…
(Sun 04 Nov 12 at 09:33am)

maurie says:
Maralyn, I recall reading some years back that the total of English speakers within China…
(Fri 02 Nov 12 at 12:10pm)

Old Man says:
At the risk of being denounced as a naysayer, I would like to point out that the Government…
(Thu 01 Nov 12 at 09:54pm)

John says:
..... the usual threats to withhold funding from states and territories that don’t begin to…
(Thu 01 Nov 12 at 11:20am)

Realist says:
Love the idea of teaching our children another language. I could speak fluent German and…
(Thu 01 Nov 12 at 09:39am)

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